Four questions to assess attitudes toward epilepsy, the caveness questions: Analytical study to verify the usefulness of the Japanese version.

OBJECTIVE

This study sought to translate the Caveness questions (CQs), initially formulated in the United States for assessing attitudes toward people with epilepsy (PWE), into Japanese. Concurrently, the study examined the translated instrument's psychometric properties, specifically the usefulness within Japan's cultural and linguistic context.

METHODS

We crafted the Japanese version of CQs-J by drawing upon the original English and German versions. Subsequently, On May 22nd and 23rd, 2023, we administered an online questionnaire survey to the general public registered with the online research survey service (Cross Marketing Group Inc., Tokyo, Japan). Inclusion criteria comprised an age of ≥18 years, processing proficient reading and speaking skills in Japanese, and demonstrating the ability to comprehend the Japanese questionnaires. In addition, we included questions about age, gender, education levels, employment status, and any experiences with epilepsy.

RESULTS

A cohort comprising 400 ordinary people processing prior exposure to information regarding epilepsy participated in the study. Participants provided informed consent before proceeding to complete the study questionnaire. The CQs-J, encompassing following four items.CQ1) Would you object to having any of your children in school or at play associate with persons who sometimes had seizures (fits)?CQ2) Do you think epilepsy is a form of insanity or not?CQ3) Do you think epileptics should or should not be employed in jobs like other people?CQ4) Would you object to having a son or daughter of yours marry a person who sometimes has seizures (fits)?We compared CQs-J groups with negative or positive attitudes towards epilepsy, taking into account age, gender, employment status, education levels, and knowledge and experiences of the condition. Those who responded to the CQ1 question that they would object to their child's occasional association with someone at school or at play who has seizures (fits) were significantly more negative in their experiences with epilepsy: they did not understand what to do during seizures (Ex3, p < 0.01), and they did not believe in the effectiveness of epilepsy treatment (Ex4, p < 0.01). In addition, males were significantly more likely to respond that epilepsy is insanity when asked the CQ2 question (p < 0.001). Additionally, in CQ3, do you think people with epilepsy should have the same access to jobs as other people with epilepsy? Significant differences were found for younger age, a lower overall Epilepsy Knowledge Scale score (p < 0.001), being employed (p = 0.028), Ex3 (p = 0.041), and Ex4 (p < 0.01). Finally, older people were significantly more opposed to marrying someone who has seizures in CQ4 (p < 0.001) or is not working, and others were also significantly more opposed (p = 0.030).

SIGNIFICANCE

We evaluated the utility of the Japanese version of the CQs, demonstrating its effectiveness for assessing treatment strategies in stigma reduction and enabling cross-cultural comparisons of attitudes towards epilepsy. In large-scale social surveys, the CQs-J scale effectively captures broad attitudes toward epilepsy with a limited number of items and offers the advantage of ease of use for longitudinal studies, such as tracking changes in attitudes over time. Furthermore, we expect the CQs-J results to facilitate in-depth cross-cultural comparisons of attitudes toward epilepsy by comparing them across different cultures.